Many people suffer from neck pain or need to undergo neck exercises for numerous reasons. For example, people who have been involved in a motor vehicle accident or have suffered an injury while playing contact sports such as football are prone to develop a whiplash associated disorder (WAD), a condition resulting from an acceleration-deceleration mechanism or any other impact that may cause damage to the neck muscles or to neck structures. Approximately 4 million people are hospitalized annually in the United States alone for WAD, while nearly a quarter of them never fully recover. The cost for WAD injuries, including health and insurance claims, is over 100 billion USD per year.
The majority of people who suffer from non-specific neck pain (NSNP) may have experienced symptoms associated with WAD or have an undiagnosed cervical herniated disc. For this population, the recommended treatment regimen includes a variety of exercises promoting neck movement and other functional activity training, leading to improved rehabilitation.
Commonly these exercises may be carried out in the comfort of one's home. However, due to the monotonic nature of these exercises, or due to the associated pain, many people do not adhere to the recommended regimen and therefore the sensation of pain is not adequately alleviated. H. Bahat et al, “Cervical Kinematic Training with and without Interactive VR Training for Chronic Neck Pain—A Randomized Clinical Trial”, Manual Therapy 20 (2015) 68-78, discloses a virtual reality (VR) device for use as a cervical kinematic assessment and training tool, whereby user attention is directed to an external stimulus rather than to the body movements. The hardware includes a head-mounted display with a three-dimensional motion tracker. Dynamic motion tracking data is analyzed with use of range of motion (ROM), velocity and accuracy modules to elicit cervical motion by the user's response to visual stimuli provided by an interactive 3D virtual environment. During a VR session, a virtual object is controlled by the user's head motion in the four directions of flexion, extension, right rotation and left rotation. A training session also involves a laser pointer that is mounted on the user's head in order to perform a head pursuit task. The drawback of such an arrangement is the need and cost of a dedicated VR system, making the training less accessible to people who need to recover from neck injury or to prevent potential injury to the neck.
Home training has several limitations. With no direct guidance from the clinician, the patient has no immediate feedback to confirm correct performance of required exercises. Also, lack of such guidance and supervision often leads to even lower adherence; current literature discusses the nature of low adherence to home training, suggesting that patients tend to disregard the importance of prescribed home training. Moreover, patients that suffer from chronic or other long-term conditions (such as those associated with WAD or NSNP) are even less inclined to perform recommended home training (J. Kirsten et al, “Barriers to Treatment Adherence in Physiotherapy Outpatient Clinics: A Systematic Review”, Man Ther. June, 2010; 15(32):220-228). As a result, the pain of an initial sensed condition may persist or even worsen—leading to other required medical interventions that could have been prevented, thus also increasing associated costs of the initial condition (“Adherence to Long-Term Therapies: Evidence for Action”, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2003).
The activation of muscles supporting the skeletal posture is an effective way to prevent many injuries as disclosed for example, in “Cervical Resistance Training: Effects on Isometric and Dynamic Strength” (Taylor et al., Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 77, No. 11, November 2006).
It is an object of the present invention to provide a neck therapy and physical training device that facilitates neck mobility restoration, encourages conformance to an exercise regimen, and is cost effective.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a therapy and physical training device that facilitates rehabilitation and improved conditioning of a given body part.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.